Angels manager Mike Scioscia, right, vents his frustration to umpires after a call on the transfer rule went from out to safe. / Steven Bisig, USA TODAY Sports

by Paul White, USA TODAY Sports

by Paul White, USA TODAY Sports

It's not so much that replay review is revolutionizing baseball this season. Rather, the expanded process has cast a light on other changes in the game in a fashion Major League Baseball anticipated - though perhaps not to this extent.

In the 47 challenges over the first nine days of the season, safe or out hasn't been the issue.

Rather, it's been players transferring balls from their gloves to their bare hands. Or whether catchers are legally blocking home plate.

Or even whether a ball is stuck in - or under - an outfield wall.

"C'mon MLB, that's terrible, and you can quote me on that," Los Angeles Angels outfielder Josh Hamilton said Tuesday after the newly emphasized transfer rule went against him in a loss to the Seatlte Mariners.

Hamilton's reaction is a whole lot stronger than Washington Nationals manager Matt Williams' measured, "It's certainly a work in progress."

Says Williams, who lost an apparent inside-the-park home run last week on a ball ruled after a challenge to have been stuck under padding along an outfield wall: "As we go through it, there are going to be many, many situations that come up that are first-timers."

Williams still disagrees with the call against Atlanta, when Braves left fielder Justin Upton threw up his hands â?? as he says he has been taught to do throughout his career - rather than try to take the ball from under the padding, but eventually did when the umpires did not stop the play. The Braves challenged and replay umpires called it a ground-rule double.

"It looked to everybody in the stadium to be one thing," Williams says. "The judgment from somebody not in the stadium was completely different. That's one of those gray areas that you don't have the luxury of being in the stadium and viewing it as it happened. We'll just have to work through it."

The system itself is working smoothly, pretty much everyone involved agrees. But there's plenty of concern and disagreement about interpreting what we're seeing in stadiums, in clubhouses and MLB's command center in New York.

Of those first 47 challenges, 16 calls were overturned. Major League Baseball said replays during the first week average 2:15, still above the 1:30 MLB vice-president Joe Torre says is the aim. And that doesn't account for other shorter delays when managers talk to umpires, then decide not to challenge after getting a signal from the dugout.

As for the system overall, Torre told USA TODAY Sports Wednesday that it's too early for him to comment.

"I think it's gone well," says San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy, one manager who found himself unable to get a crucial call reviewed because he had used his allotted challenge. "I don't think it's changed the flow of the game. It seems like the fans, similar to the home run ball, they're excited about seeing what the call is."

But in the same game Bochy unsuccessfully used his challenge, he also had two on-field discussions when he elected not to challenge after a signal from his dugout that the umpires appeared to be correct.

"There has to be people saying, 'This stinks,' " says Arizona's Kirk Gibson, the opposing manager in that game. "At some point, you'll see how many times you can come out without using a challenge is going to be amended."

That could be the least of the tweaks that at least will be discussed.

Atlanta Braves president John Schuerholz, the primary architect of the new system, has predicted as much as three years could be needed to sort through all the nuances, but the assessment already is ongoing.

"We're studying every play," says former umpire and current supervisor Steve Palermo. "If there is a trend that we think there is a problem, there will be tweaks. "

But don't count on the transfer controversy being one of them, despite pleas from Hamilton and Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon, who said after a transfer call went against him Tuesday: "He was absolutely out. That has to be revisited."

The rule involved is one players were warned about this spring, when a player apparently catches a ball and transfers the ball to his bare hand to continue the play. It's most common among infielders attempting to complete double plays.

Realizing such plays would come under more intense scrutiny with replay, MLB made it a point of emphasis and told umpires to not grant an out unless a player can show control of the ball in his bare hand after removing it from his mitt.

Maddon was upset about an infield play but Hamilton, like several other outfielders this week, were bothered by what thought were catches being nullified by the ball not coming out of the mitt cleanly, even after they took a couple of steps after the ball entered the glove.

The interpretation even extended to Minnesota Twins catcher Kurt Suzuki trying to hold onto a foul-tip third strike Wednesday, a catch that was ultimately ruled good though the ball eventually went to the ground after Suzuki squeezed his mitt around the ball twice.

The outfielders haven't been so fortunate.

Wednesday, Indians outfielder Elliot Johnson caught a fly ball, ran into the fence, turned to throw the ball toward the infield - and only then did it drop from his glove.

"People are going to come to realize it's not just a granted thing," Palermo says of the plays. "You must show possession in the non-glove hand."

The other new rule interpretation is the attempt to curtail home plate collisions.

"I believe this is going to be the toughest overall for them to get right all the time," says New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi, who disputed his Francisco Cervelli being ruled out at the plate last week when Toronto catcher Josh Thole caught a throw where Cervelli was about to slide. "To me it's a vague interpretation of what blocking home plate is, and I think it needs to be in writing."

Even with the disagreements, it took until Tuesday until the major leagues had their first ejection of the season.

Chicago Cubs manager Rick Renteria was tossed for arguing balls and strikes â?? the one key element of the game not reviewable â?? in his team's seventh game.

It's hardly a record: Research by Restrosheet.org shows the first ejection of the 1918 season was in the 25th game played by the New York Yankees. More recently, it took until Arizona's 11th game in 1999.

Still, that screaming and dirt-kicking forever linked to managers such as Earl Weaver and Billy Martin is an endangered species.

"I thought about it the other day, arguing balls and strikes just to change it up," Miami Marlins manager Mike Redmond says, maybe only partly serious. "As for how it's going to be in three or four months â?¦ hey, you never know when somebody is going to have a bad day."

For now, the lack of animosity is helping to make the system work.

"The cooperation has been phenomenal," Redmond says. "That's been helpful for all of us because, at the end of the day, everyone wants to get the calls right."

And there's no longer much to be gained from screaming at an umpire.

"There's really no reason to argue," Williams says. "You go out and say, 'I'd like to take a look at that,' and the umps are obliging and they send it to New York for a ruling. You can scream and yell all you want. The umpires aren't necessarily going to make that call anyway. An umpire in New York is going to make that final judgment.